The only movie reviews you need

Tuesday, June 28, 2016

Director Roland Emmerich’s sequel
to his 1996 alien invasion blockbuster ‘Independence Day’ (or ‘ID4’) finally
hits theaters 20 years later.Does
anyone care?In light of the fact that
the original earned over ten times its budget (although unadjusted for
inflation), perhaps the only surprise is “what took it so long?” Then again, Emmerich and his long-time
collaborator Dean Devlin, best known for such disaster flicks as ‘The Day After
Tomorrow’ and ‘2012’ as well as critically maligned disposable popcorn fare like
‘Stargate,’ ’10,000 BC,’ the 1998 ‘Godzilla’ and ‘White House Down,’ aren’t exactly
known for sequels.

‘Independence Day: Resurgence’
takes place (surprise!) 20 years after the cataclysmic alien invasion which
devastated earth (and blew up the White House, cool!) in the original
“classic.”Ultimately triumphant thanks
to the courage and efforts of a handful of individuals (Bill Pullman, Will
Smith, Jeff Goldblum, Brent Spiner, etc.), earth has now established a network
of defense satellites and outposts (including a moon base) to guard against any
future invasion, with technology recovered from captured and presumably
reverse-engineered alien weaponry.When
the distress call of alien prisoners reach a 3,000-miles wide Mothership, the
stage is set for a renewed alien invasion that would make the first attempt
look like a warm-up.

ID4:R is pretty much more of the
same compared to the original with a bigger budget, better f/x, more
bang-bang/explosions, less character development and an even less convincing
plot, if we’re to believe it had one in the first place. There is never any sense of danger or excitement; everything in ID4:R happens
on the fly by the seat of the pants in just the nick of time.It gets repetitive and predictable fast, and even the comic
relief falls flat.Michael Bay couldn’t
have done any better if he were to remake ‘War of the Worlds’ by way of the
‘Transformers.’Then why did I see it,
you ask?So I can give it the grade
below and save you the time and money, of course.

Monday, June 27, 2016

While I avoid derivative and
formulaic B-movie dreck such as the much ballyhooed ‘Sharknado’ or ‘Sharktopus’
franchises like I would their subject matter in real life, I’ve always enjoyed
a good shark-in-the-water (note the emphasis that sharks should not venture out
of their natural environment) movie ever since I first saw Spielberg’s seminal
masterpiece of suspense and terror ‘Jaws’ (and that even includes Renny
Harlin’s ‘Deep Blue Sea’).So when I
first saw the trailer of ‘The Shallows’ featuring Blake Lively’s bikini-clad
surfer-in-peril against a Great White that’s stalking her, in a manner of
speaking, the question of whether to see it or not was already a foregone
conclusion.

Lively is Nancy, a young woman
from Galveston, Texas mourning the passing of her free-spirited mom who lost
her battle against cancer and taking a much needed break from her medical studies
by going to a nameless and secluded beach paradise in Mexico where her mom once
took her surfing.After catching the
last wave before calling it a day, she found to her dismay and alarm that the
shallows around the pristine sands of her little paradise have become
shark-infested waters.What follows is a harrowing ordeal that would
test her endurance and will to survive to their very limits, as high tidal
conditions threaten to swamp the little piece of rock on which she took refuge and
render it shark territory.

She's gonna need a bigger rock (and I don't mean the one Ryan put on her finger).

‘The Shallows’ manages to be an
intense, riveting, suspenseful and visceral viewing experience without
resorting to the cheap and tired “mutant super shark syndrome” most shark-themed
movies employ today, especially those
from the Syfy channel.Lively is at once
charismatic and believable as the movie’s heroine, displaying much grit and
intelligence in her hours-long chess match against the shark that just won’t
leave her alone.On such solid grounds
it is easy to overlook the movie’s somewhat implausible and overwrought Hollywood
climax.

The backstabbing cat-eat-cat
world of fashion modeling gets the ‘Black Swan’ treatment in Danish
director Nicolas Winding Refn’s latest indie feature ‘The Neon Demon.’With his two previous films, ‘Drive’ and
‘Only God Forgives’ (both starring Ryan Gosling), Refn has proven himself to be
a controversial arthouse auteur who thrives on nihilistic ultraviolence and the
moral ambiguity of his anti-heroes.‘The
Neon Demon’ is rather more subtle but packs a nasty punch in its own way with
its depiction of what it takes and to what lengths people will go to be “the
fairest of them all.”

‘The Neon Demon’ follows Jesse’s
(Elle Fanning) meteoric rise in the world of fashion modeling on the glitzy LA
scene.Blessed with no talents other
than her mesmeric natural beauty (a modeling scout literally stared at her
unblinking for nearly a full minute as if enraptured), she soon became the object of
jealousy and scorn from her chief competitors, two smiling plastic blonde Barbies
who make Rachel McAdams look like a saint in ‘Mean Girls’ by
comparison.Naïve and self-absorbed
herself, Jesse is only tragically and blissfully oblivious to the machinations
going on around her leading to their inevitable WTF???!!! conclusion.

Like ‘Drive’ and ‘Only God
Forgives,’ ‘The Neon Demon’ is bound to provoke and polarize critics and
viewers alike.Its key characters are
downright unlikeable and self-centered, the pace can be agonizingly slow and
the final scene may cause more than a few head-scratches, but the movie is also
a work of art in its beauty, attention to detail and surrealism.The reaction it elicits from the audience at
various points will range from fascination to revulsion, and I suspect that’s exactly
as Refn intended.Alas, ‘Black Swan’ and
‘Mulholland Drive’ it isn’t.

Wednesday, June 15, 2016

The second and far superior
sequel to come out on June 10 is director James Wan’s much anticipated
follow-up to his 2013 chiller ‘The Conjuring.’‘The Conjuring’ is one of the best horror movies in years with its mastery
of technique, attention to detail, creepy atmosphere, nail-biting tension and
sympathetic characters whom we care deeply about in the Perron family.So how
is Wan going to keep the sequel from waning (excuse the pun)?By doing exactly the same things with a new
set of sympathetic characters whom we can emotionally invest in, of course.

Based on the so-called “Enfield Poltergeist” (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2054842/Enfield-Poltergeist-The-amazing-story-11-year-old-North-London-girl-levitated-bed.html) in 1977, ‘The Conjuring 2’ brings back our
favorite real life ghost-busting couple, Ed and Lorraine Warren (Patrick Wilson, doing a decent Elvis impression below and Vera
Farmiga), as they’re commissioned by the Catholic Church to look into possible paranormal
activity that’s haunting the Hodgson family in Enfield, England.It appears that the youngest daughter, Janet,
may be possessed by the ghost of a previous occupant of their house, a grumpy
72-year old man named Bill Wilkins.Ed
and Lorraine must call upon their experience and expertise to either help the
Hodgsons (if it’s real) or disprove their claims as a hoax and publicity
stunt.

What sets ‘The Conjuring 2’ apart
from the spine-tingling original is that it focuses on Ed and Lorraine as much
as their latest foray into the realm of the paranormal.Drawing faith, strength and resolve from one
another especially in times of crises, the Warrens are truly greater as a whole
than the sum of its parts and their love for each other is real and
everlasting.Against such an unbreakable
bond, how can the forces of evil (in this case a demonic entity named Valak who looks like
Marilyn Manson wearing a nun’s habit) prevail?

Monday, June 13, 2016

Louis Leterrier’s 2013
magicians-as-Robin Hood con/caper movie ‘Now You See Me’ was a rather enjoyable
popcorn flick and international box office hit despite its unbelievable
smoke-and-mirrors set-ups, convoluted plot and lukewarm critical reviews,
largely thanks to its likeable ensemble cast led by Mark Ruffalo, Jesse Eisenberg, Woody Harrelson, Isla Fisher and Dave Franco.It is only a matter of time that we see ‘Now
You See Me 2.’Subbing for the pregnant Fisher
as the team’s obligatory female member is Lizzy Caplan (‘The Interview,’
‘Masters of Sex’), as our team of magicians known as the “Four Horsemen” take
on a new adventure orchestrated by disgraced and incarcerated debunker-of-magic
Thaddeus Bradley (Morgan Freeman).Or
did he?In the world of NYSM
you're never quite sure who’s pulling the strings and who’s setting up whom.

Some 12 months after the events that
transpired in the first film, the Horsemen suddenly find themselves
exposed, on the run and “magically” transported to Macau.If anything, the plot of NYSM2 is even more preposterous,
twisty and hard to believe than its predecessor’s, involving an intricate scheme
by a young tech guru (Daniel Radcliffe) to steal a smart
phone chip that could mine personal data without the end users’ permission or knowledge.The Horsemen must once again, through
their ingenuity and prowess in deception, navigate danger and find a way to outsmart
Harry Potter, which of course they manage to do all the while making the FBI
pursuing them look like Keystone Cops.

Alas, this lackluster follow-up is so far-fetched and lazy
in execution that it stretches our suspension of
disbelief beyond the breaking point and ultimately collapses under the
weight of incredulity like a house of cards.It is a tired and trite sequel which lacked
the fun and freshness that gave the original its exuberance and sense of wonder,
and is akin to watching a magic show where you only see the big reveal but not the sleight-of-hand that leads to the oohs and aahs,
leaving you with a feeling as thin and insubstantial as dissipating smoke.